there are so many scary aircraft in the U.S Air Force's Arsenal and they're touted as the
most sophisticated in the world some of these Jets can be found anywhere else not even in
Russia China or Europe some of the features of those jets are public knowledge but the military
conceals other parts as classified information however with the Advent of Technology there
are very few Secrets how many of these facts do you know about the U.S Air Force and their Jets
while much attention has been focused recently on the F-35 and f-15ex not much has been given
to the U.S Air Force's Premier air superiority Fighter the F-22 Raptor
while the Raptor was one of the most advanced aircraft in the world when it entered service
in the early 2000s sensor radar and data link technology have all advanced since then
the Raptor has received relatively few upgrades compared to Legacy 4th generation F-15 and F-16
aircraft and is now significantly outdated in some ways for example f-16s f-15s and
fa-18s are all equipped with the jhmcs missile queuing technology which allows a pilot to lock
onto an aircraft just by looking at it the F-22 currently does not have this capability [Music]
the U.S Air Force until now has been largely pursuing a strategy of upgrading the F-22 via
software allowing the F-22 to more effectively use sensors it already has while incorporating
minor Hardware upgrades to allow for the integration of new weapons but is this
strategy sustainable as Radars and Electro Optical sensors get more powerful and smaller
the U.S Air Force aims to pair its fighter Fleet to just four types in the F-22 Raptor
won't be among them the services Top General said those four will be the F-35 f-15ex F-16 and the
Next Generation air dominance or ngad fighter General Charles Quinton Brown Air Force Chief
of Staff Senator mccallies and Associates virtual conference right now we have seven fighter fleets
Brown said my intent is to get down to about four okay and with that four what is the Right Mix
Brown said that the fighter makeup is really A four plus one because we're going to have the A10
for a while as we re-wing the venerable warthog to extend its service life into the 2030s the F-22
will be replaced by the ngad jet which will fly alongside the F-35 which will be the Cornerstone
the f-15ex as we come in and then we'll have F-16 for a while as well Brown said the Air Force
currently has 186 f-22s according to a Heritage Foundation count in November they're just 12 years
old on average Heritage reported making the type among the youngest in the fleet but the F-22 has
faced low Mission capability rates in part due to structural upgrades that often take multiple
aircraft offline last year Air Force leaders hinted that they might buy the f-15ex not just
to replace older f-15cs but also the 218 newer f-15e strike Eagles Brown said the service is
still considering what will be the replacement for the F-16 whether it's additional f-35s or
something else in the future but I don't need to make that decision today that's probably six seven
eight years away into the future he said the F-22 built to dominate Soviet warplanes and air-to-air
dogfights has never shot down an enemy plane in combat instead the plane made its combat debut
over Syria in 2014. raptors have also deployed to the Middle East to deter Iran decades ago the
Air Force envisioned a fleet of 750 Raptors but the fleet was capped at just 187 Jets contractor
Lockheed Martin delivered the final F-22 to the Air Force in 2012. since then U.S officials have
occasionally pondered restarting production of the plane but the efforts never materialized at
one point Lockheed proposed building new f-22s with more modern Electronics used in the F-35
stealth fighter ultimately the Air Force chose to buy updated F-15 fighter jets from Boeing various
allies have expressed interest in buying the plane but U.S law prohibits its export